Class action lawyers allege Toyota knew about safety problems

A revised complaint to a class action lawsuit [materials, text] against Toyota Motor Corporation [corporate website; JURIST news archive] filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Central District of California [official website] claimed that the company was aware of automobile safety problems in 2003, but failed to take action to protect consumers. Attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit submitted a Toyota internal report that allegedly proves that the company sold vehicles that it knew had acceleration defects. Toyota employees allegedly recreated sudden unintended acceleration [ABC report] in the laboratory, but the company did not reveal the information to the public. The report was one of many documents that a federal judge ordered [text, PDF] Toyota to submit to the plaintiffs' attorneys. Toyota released a statement [press release] defending the company's response to laboratory testing and denying any defects in specific automobile components. Many of the internal documents were not made publicly available because of privacy concerns.

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